The future of THC & hemp sales in Texas | Dallas News Live

Well, Texas hemp shops are looking to Austin for clarity on what they will be able to keep on their store shelves. The state tightened its rules this year, you remember, but now there is a change at the top of the Texas Senate. Vicki Goodwin defeated Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who pushed for a statewide ban on hemp-derived THC. Goodwin campaigned on rolling back restrictions. Lucas Gilkey is with us this afternoon. He is a veteran, a hemp advocate, and CEO of Hometown Heroes. CBD in Austin, Lucas. It's so good to have you with us. My first question is, what is the first rule that you would ask lawmakers to change in January? Hi, Casey. Thank you for having me. The first rule that I would say is it's what Vicky's already run on. Vicky Goodwin is we've interacted with her quite a bit. She's an amazing politician. I have a lot of confidence in her. And she's been campaigning on rolling back the restrictions that Dan Patrick put on this industry unnecessarily. So just to reiterate, so everybody understands, Dan Patrick was pushing. Pushing SB3 through the session and trying to ban the entire industry. And he actually got it through the House and the Senate and the governor vetoed it. While Dan Patrick went and subsequently took all those rules out of SB3 that were shut down. And then tried to use the Department of State Health Services to put those rules on the industry and shut it down regardless. So there's a lot of things that I think need to be undone to fix this industry and get it back to what it should be for Texans. Lucas, I want to take you back to June of last year. You just talked about Lieutenant Governor Patrick. Governor Abbott surprised lawmakers when he vetoed that bill that would have banned most hemp-derived THC products. Here is what Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said at that time, and then I want your reaction after. Watch. I'm not going to legalize marijuana in Texas. And if people want to vote me out of office for that, so be it. That doesn't stand too well with the test of time. What do you think Patrick misread about Texans on this issue, Lucas? I think him taking so much money from the alcohol industry and trying to make decisions on behalf of adult Texans that know what they wanna use and what they don't wanna use. You've got alcohol in Texas who kills over 12,000 people a year and you've got hemp who killed zero. And he tried to attribute so many harmful things to our industry at the behest of where he gets his money and what he was doing. And look, Texans saw it and they voted him out and they spoke. He asked us to vote him out of office and the hemp industry and hemp consumers in Texas stepped up and they did exactly that. So listen, there's this federal deadline coming up on December 11th. I don't know that a lot of people know about it. Congress changed what counts as hemp to include THCA, which turns into THC when it's heated. That means high THCA flower would no longer qualify as hemp under federal law. So even if Texas loosens its rules, what would that federal change mean for what you can sell? Well, the federal ban is really interesting. The federal ban was very similar to what SB3 was in Texas and that it essentially bans everything. But what the federal ban, how it got there was it was really pushed through in the government reopening bill and the budget bill. So the only reason it was put in there was because the government didn't wanna stay shut down and so they allowed it to go through. If you look at the extension vote that just happened to move it Move it from November to December for that ban. The number of politicians that supported the extension were astronomically high compared to the number against it. So we're very confident in sort of what just happened in this election cycle that the federal government is going to side with the hemp industry and continue to keep this industry alive. We're talking about 53,000 jobs in Texas, over 300,000 jobs nationally. Nobody's trying to remove jobs from the economy right now. First of all, it's unbelievable what they can sort of wedge into some of those deals in Washington to keep the government open and that had something to do with THC. They don't really equate. One more question for you. If lawmakers leave the current rules in place, what does that mean for smaller hemp shops? On the state level you're asking or the federal level? State level. On the state level, the industry is still fully legal. There's a lot of products that are still legal. There was some products removed. But if the rules are changed, then flower comes back. We can potentially get vapes back in legislative session. But right now, there are tons of hemp based cannabis products that are legal in Texas that you can either buy off our website or you can go into stores and buy them. We aren't the only company in this industry. There's a ton of amazing companies in this industry that make great products. A lot of these companies are These are family-based Texas companies. They're small ownership. You know, this industry is thriving in Texas. There are so many Texans that are part of this industry. And that's why it was always so frustrating for us where we were fighting against Dan Patrick. This industry is a grassroots Texas industry at its heart and we're very proud to be a part of it and proud to be Texans. I lied, I have a little bit more time left fortunately. I wanna get to the veteran component of this, yourself a veteran and the organization that you are with. Interestingly enough, when Governor Abbott initially vetoed some of these restrictions, a lot of people at that time said it was because he was trying to placate the veteran subset of the electorate because he was running for reelection. Yeah, that's 100% correct. We work closely with the veterans of foreign wars and other a variety of military organizations. We donate a ton of veterans every year. And the veteran component of this is huge. These are people that do not have access to a lot of the things that they want in terms of cannabis. And so the hemp industry in Texas was a godsend. Right, these are people that they go to the VA and the VA a lot of times underserves them or they'll give them products, they'll give them pharmaceuticals that are not necessarily beneficial and not at the level they would like. So the amount of veterans that use our products to sleep, to deal with pain, to deal with all these medical issues they're dealing with without trying to lump a ton of pharmaceutical pills on them is actually a really big deal and a huge component of this industry. And so it's an honor to work and serve veterans in the state through Well, there's a reason- The governor saw that. Yeah, and I was going to say not to step on you there, but there's a reason why THC was used medicinally in multiple states before it became recreational, because there are proven medical benefits. Correct, correct. Yeah, all right. Well, Lucas Gilkey with Hometown Heroes CBD in Austin, we really appreciate your time. Lawmakers return to Austin on January 12th, so I know that we will be watching it closely, as will you. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. Thank you, Casey. Have a great day, sir. You as well.